Confessions of a Shadow
by Hota
Summary: Short fic in Omi's POV about his view on his life - One shot, Complete? Please R&R ^-^


**AN**: Wai, I finally finished! This is a short clip in Omi's POV A little angsty, but ending is happy ^-^ I was thinking of making this a series, but I'm not sure... *shrugs* Enjoy and please review!   
**Disclaimer**: First my sanity and now the llama's are stealing my rights... Weiß doesn't belong to me... *sighs*   
**Posted: June 20, 2003 **

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**Confessions of a Shadow **

Omi the genki one, Omi the bright one, Omi the one who always has a smile on his face. Omi the young one, Omi the fragile one, Omi the innocent one, Omi the one who always needs protection. 

How many different titles do I have..? Too many, and all of them are false assumptions. I'm only happy because if I wasn't, the others would always be depressed. I may smile all the time, but it doesn't reach my eyes as often as it once did. I may be the youngest, but I'm not as innocent as everyone seems to think. How can someone with so much blood on their hands be called innocent? And I certainly don't need protection; I've probably had more training in self-defence than the others... 

I hate assumptions. They always lead to wrong conclusions and eventually mistakes. You would think with our kind of job, the others would have learned that. Yet still they think of me in those terms. Just because I'm small doesn't mean I'm not useful. Oh, I know how they think. They believe they should keep me away from the more dangerous battles, keep me in the shadows working on strategy and pulling down the enemies' defences. They think they're protecting me, but all they're doing is hindering me. 

I've been doing these kinds of things since I was twelve. I've been trained to do them since I was about ten. I've been taught psychology and anatomy, and then computers when I showed interest in them. I can look at a person's records and be able to figure out how they think, and then be able to take them out from any position as long as I have one good shot. And _still_ they treat me like a _child_. 

They don't do it on purpose, I know, but it's still aggravating, disappointing even. It may be a subconscious tendency to protect, but I'm just like they are. My hands are already stained, there's nothing they can do about that. My soul is as heavy as theirs and I feel the weight of our sins just as much as they do. I have my own demons to battle, my own scars to carry, my own past to deal with... Just because I went through it all at a younger age than they did doesn't make me someone to look down upon and protect. 

They try to treat me normally, knowing that I wouldn't take kindly to open patronization, but my skills are just as good as theirs, if not better, at detecting mendacity... Ken isn't as bad as the others; I think it's because he's the youngest after me that I don't mind when he offers to take me to one of his practises or to a movie. In a sense, he's just trying to be normal, and include me in it. 

He tries to hide himself in soccer and the kids he teaches. Instead of forgetting his past, he tries to relive it, and surprisingly, it seems to help. When he's on the field with the kids, he looks like he belongs there; and he knows he belongs there. Those are almost the only times that I've seen him with a truly genuine smile on his face; the kind where his eyes light up and he looks like he could start laughing at any minute. 

Youji goes out every night to forget, but I have to wonder if it does more harm than good. Sometimes he'll come back, plastered beyond belief, and go to his room and crash. Other times he'll come in smelling like sex, with faint traces of lipstick still on him and an almost empty look in his eyes; like he's been reminded of his past when all he wanted was to bury it... 

Aya... Aya, I think, almost accepts what he's become. He justifies it as revenge for his sister and his family. After that confrontation at the hospital, when I asked him who the girl in the room was, I became curious as to what really happened. So I used my computer to dig deeper into his files. Honestly, if that had happened to me, I probably would have done the same thing as he did. 

In a sense, it did happen to me, but now that Ouka is gone, I have no living relatives that I would call my own. Manx is the closest to a mother that I have, and I'm thankful that she was here for me when I was first brought into Kritiker. At least Aya has hope in his sister, no matter how fragile it seems. 

But I'm frightened as to what Aya will do once Aya-chan wakes up. He seems like the type who would declare himself unworthy to be around her now that his hands are stained... I hope he'll be able to see himself for who he is, not his sins. Sometimes I wonder if Ran still exists in him somewhere, and if he does what it would take to bring him out... 

And then there's me. I have it the easiest, and at the same time hardest, time of being normal. I may go to school, but I can't relate to the other kids. I've seen so much more than they could possibly imagine; things they've only seen in movies. And I can't get close to them, on fear that they will be close to our next target. So I hide myself in my room; occupy myself with my computer, losing myself in bits and bytes of data as I forget about the outside world. 

No matter how much we want to be normal, if given the chance, I don't think we would survive. Whenever I see things on the news, I automatically start thinking of possible mission tactics, and I know the others do it, too, because those kinds of things are usually related to our missions. 

  
  


"Hey, bishounen, what are you working on?" 

I glance up as Youji looks over my head and drapes an arm around my shoulders. "Mou, Youji-kun!" I protest, closing the small brown book I use as a journal. "You shouldn't intrude in others' privacy." 

He merely gives me a lazy smile of apology and flicks some stray hair out of his eyes. "Hai, hai," he replies, trying to look solemn. 

I sigh quietly. "You want me to cover the rest of your shift again, right?" 

"How'd you know?" 

"Lucky guess." 

He laughs. "You don't mind, do you, chibi?" 

I roll my eyes. "No. Go on, Youji-kun," I reply, and I honestly don't mind; it's a slow day today, so there's not much to do anyway. 

He ruffles my hair. "Thanks, Omittchi." 

"Kudou!" I glance over as Ken comes in from the back, a slight frown on his face. "Don't tell me you're leaving early again!?" 

Youji smirks at him. "Yeah, I am. See you later, Ken-ken!" he calls, hanging his apron up and heading out the door with a wave. 

I shake my head with a small smile, tossing hair out of my eyes before going back to writing. 

  
  


Sometimes, I wonder if it was Destiny or cruel Fate that we were put on the same team... But I'm not complaining. I may not be treated fairly all the time, but I guess I'll have to get used to it, just like normal younger brothers. 

_ ~Tsukiyono Omi _

_Owari or TBC? _


End file.
